


Mooring Hermes

by ghostystripes



Category: Blood of Zeus (Cartoon)
Genre: Courtship, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:01:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostystripes/pseuds/ghostystripes
Summary: You’re a doe-eyed noble heir on the brink of adulthood, unaware your child-like advocacy of nature and animals has brought an Olympian crashing down to earth.
Relationships: Hermes/Reader
Comments: 13
Kudos: 191





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song, Tale of Moon from Beastars, captures reader and Hermes soooo perfectly. Hope you’ll listen (:  
> https://youtu.be/eO6mntJBo1E

* * *

You finally allowed him to get close enough to touch you.

Those eyes: shadowed beneath that gleaming golden helm; those eyes: terrifying in their bright, icy beauty found you—a quivering mortal half-hidden within an olive bush.

Tears were flowing liberally down your cheeks, gathering at the tip of your chin. It was a common symptom of an Olympian’s glory—heavy, involuntary tears that could be dried by their fingers alone.

Hermes, a giant, knelt at the bush, eyes fixed on your small, supple backside, eyes fixed on the soft (s/c) skin loose from your robes, kissed by the summer air.

“What is your name?” He whispered.

Bravely, you allowed your blurry gaze to find his, and you lifted your face, trembling lips and reddened nose both.

You flinched at the fluid motion in which the Herald of the Gods discarded his gauntlets. They fell, a soft “clink” into the dirt. His sharp cyan eyes stared after them satisfactorily.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he explained.

“Not even by accident.”

Hermes said this as he turned back to you, hands pulling off his helm. A bronze braid, now freed, tumbled down his back.

“Y/N,” you squeaked from your shrub.

“I’m Y/N,” you tried again, though the squeak hadn’t left.

Something sweet swept across your cheek—something warm, infinite.

Hermes was drawing his hand away from your face, and your tears stopped.

Hermes smiled at you, a smile so affectionate that even Aphrodite would glance away from the tenderness, a blush on her own cheeks.

“Don’t cry, my little lamb.”

* * *

“You’re _panting_.”

Apollo didn’t ask—he was stating a fact.

Another fact went unsaid. The gods never panted out of sheer exhaustion, because exhaustion never fell upon them; only passion or wrath could draw out such unwanted breaths, and Apollo was quite certain Hermes wasn’t angry. He hadn’t been home long enough for Apollo to be the usual culprit. 

His golden eyes were falling up and down his returning brother, noting the cherry petals still clinging to his robe, the aroma of a summertime forest following him swifter than his own shadow, and the odd fact that he was sliding his wrists gracefully back into the gold of his gauntlets.

Hermes kept his attention averted, the expression of his eyes hid beneath the gold of his helm, his decision to ignore Apollo’s grin— _firm_.

But the god of the sun wouldn’t relent.

A golden tint swam up the side of Hermes as Apollo fell into step beside him, grin widening more, lips falling open with sudden, knowing laughter.  
  
“It’s a _mortal_ , isn’t it!”

The Fates would say Hermes quickened his stride at the words, but no one could really know for sure.

”You’ve been dashing away to fondle a _mortal_ this whole time, haven’t you!”

Apollo half-tripped at Hermes sudden halt, his gold-amber eyes roaring with amusement as they glimmered back upon the cyan of his brother’s. 

In an instant, Hermes was gone again, as he’d only come to retrieve his small cornucopia. 

He was whirl of cloudy echoes two hundred miles away upon the horizon when Apollo turned to look at the spot where he’d just been. 

The grin plastered upon his fine features would remain there for the entirety of supper.  
  



	2. Chapter I.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so the star found himself stupidly in love with the campfire.

  
Hermes had been watching you _long_ before _you_ saw him.

It started with legitimate curiosity, Hermes invisible in his shimmering cloak, striding through your homeland’s lush forests. He was to collect the soul of a fallen woodsman and the soul of a deformed baker’s son who’d hung himself at the base of the mountain.

The last ghostly hue was inching its way down the cornucopia, a blue glow upon Hermes’ fingertips when he knew he heard it for sure.

The soft, breathless yip of a mortal.

A young one.

“Oh!”

You were some two miles west, clasping your hand tightly, then switching to suck the blood off your prickled finger.

The hedgehog pups you’d been raising had grown to become restless, quick to dart off into the shadow of the thicket where dangers lie unknown.

To prevent this, you’d often have to grab one in a flash. The pain of their quills raking into your palm would never _not_ hurt, but you loved and cared for them, just as their mother had.

It came as a shock to you last evening at the dinner table.

One of your older brothers, in the enthusiasm of his new hunting bow from Father, held up his prize with a wide grin. Skewered on a bloody, gore-slick arrow was her curled, stiff little body.

You started with a yelp, the dining chair crashing to the floor behind you as you flew up from the table, both hands pressed tightly to your sobbing lips.

You hadn’t been home since, and your second evening spent in the forest was falling upon you.

Your robes were tattered from catching on thorn bushes all day, the laurel in the (h/c) of your curls lopsided and shedding its leaves. The jewelry on your fingers, wrists and neck, gold bearing the signet of your family’s nobility, were digging sharply into your skin.

But Hermes watched you, cloaked just a few feet away then, sharp eyes settling onto the dimples of your smile that appeared despite it all.

Your _smile._

You were on your hands and knees, a trembling bundle of dirty satin and innocence peering into one side of an old log.

“Off to bed then, Nutmeg,” you cooed to the one whose quills were still stuck in your finger.

He squeaked innocently, little black eyes blinking once before he disappeared into the log with the rest of his siblings.

You watched a moment longer, then, wearily, dragged your hands along the forest floor, heaping up a pile of leaves.

Without a word more, you collapsed into them, fast asleep next to the log with your hedgehogs.

Hermes stared. He stared at the scraped arm thrown over your eyes, your still ankles, one clasped in a golden sandal, the other dirty and bare. He stared at your full, supple lips, slightly askew in slumber.

Hermes, an infinite heir of Olympus and bane of the Giants, just stared at you, _alarmed_.

Alarmed, because he was quite possibly in love.


End file.
